Demos

Voltage Black - The Flowers Are Explosive

Owain Paciuszko 02/12/2010

Rating: 3/5

On this new track from Londoner Ewan Fisher he seems to be going for something a tad more cinematic than previous efforts, which transformed a kind of 16-bit soundscape into dancefloor friendly tunes. Here the usual tricks and tropes are in full force, but with a more of a 'narrative' to the arrangment of the musical journey, moving from sombre, glitchy sequences into heart-pumping racing synth lines before bursting into juddering, erratic choruses filled with grumbling, heavy synths. It's the quieter moments though that work best, with the synthesised strings around the three minute mark particularly strong alongside the bubbly ambience flip flopping between the left and right channels.

He's also been responsible for a remix of What Went Wrong by Cold In Berlin which layers vocals at various pitch over a shimmering synth line that stutters with a constant ringing in your ears. The muffled, squawking brass sounds in the breakdowns that tremble into vocals blurred by effects are strongest when not battling against the lighter vocal melody, at times the track sounds like two songs being played at the same time and verges on headache inducingly impenetrable. It's a good indicator of how the Voltage Black sound transfers to another song, but it's more of a showreel than an appealing track in itself.

It's always interesting to hear the work of this artist, he has a distinct sound that brings a lot of depth in arrangment and experimentation to the currently popular glitch-electro genre. Though these two tracks aren't the strongest example of Fisher's ability they are at least a welcome addition to his slow drip-feed of material in lieu of a full on EP or LP.